Wild Wisdom: How To Navigate Difficult Emotions

In Brief

Day and night exist; so too do joy and sorrow, anger and sadness. Yin and Yang comprise our wholeness.

Reflect On:

Consider that the night has as much to offer as daytime, and is just as necessary. What new version of wholeness can we be crafted into when we embrace and skillfully work through all of what we feel?

“Each of our feelings or attitudes, no matter how negative, can evoke compassion and lead to transformation. We then joyfully realize how every negative experience has positive, growth-fostering potential, how every liability is a resource, how every shadow trait has a kernel of value, how every disturbance or mistake can deepen our spiritual consciousness . . . there is an energy of light frozen in our confusion, a luminosity we can release, if only we do not give up our mining.”

Positive emotions satisfy the immediate gratification style of modern culture. They pay dividends right away. We try to keep up with pleasure, joy, and bliss in their ever-more-enticing forms. Difficult emotions, however, take patience, and require delayed gratification. The result of this gratification is a deeper sense of fulfillment that can’t be gained by direct experience with positive emotion.

Through the lens of Chinese medicine, our positive emotions are considered Yang (positive and quick) and confer Yang power. Our negative, dark, or difficult emotions are Yin. They take longer to release their nectar, as we slow down to meet them. We might have to look like outcasts for a time to reap their hidden, subtler power. These Yin experiences deliver a quieter, inner power, gradually.

A balance of Yin and Yang power is crucial. If we over-feast on Yang emotions, we can burn out and fall into an exhausted or depressive state once we can’t keep up with all the excitement. This corresponds with the modern epidemic of adrenal exhaustion. If we over-feast on negative emotions and ignore the lighter side of life, we can also end up in the pits. Sojourns into grief don’t count because they often deliver great rewards.

When Yin and Yang are in balance and healthy they mutually support one another. When we find balance between Yin and Yang emotions, we can reap the benefits of both positive and negative states. It’s not difficult to see the benefit of happiness, joy, positivity, exuberance, and inspiration—all Yang experiences. More difficult is to glean the good reasons to embrace our dark and difficult states.

When we understand, even if just intellectually at first, why and how difficult states are absolutely crucial to our well-being, this gives us incentive to stay present and open to them and override our knee-jerk tendency to shut down and go away when they surface. What’s more, when we attune to and are patient with what’s difficult, that darkness transforms us little by little into more light, a light we cannot attain from Yang states alone. Only by staying with what’s dark can we create more love and light from what seems rotten and miserable.

So, this writing is dedicated to understanding the unique benefits that come from our difficult feelings and why it’s a good idea to stay close to them, when they visit.

Looking Deeper

Just like beauty and the beast, beneath the ugly exterior of our difficult emotions is a tender core of inspiration, soulfulness, and renewal. They return us to what really matters by revealing and empowering what we care about. If we sit with these feelings long enough, which is to welcome and let them have their way with us (at least in good part), we can reap their hidden riches (note: this is often not the case for mental illness, such as anxiety and depression).

Paradoxically, this process of staying close to difficulty eventually fills us up, quenching us with fulfillment. I’m convinced that if we don’t milk and allow ourselves to be transformed by these emotions, we live fractured lives. And as a result, we fracture the lives of others, including the Earth.

In being with painful feelings and letting them change us, they recede. The more we allow ourselves to be changed by them, the more they dissolve. In fact, they recede in proportion to how much we allow them to change us, as if their purpose were to get us to pay attention, to surrender, and to transform. From being with and working through our anger, sadness, fear, remorse, and envy, we develop genuine compassion, courage, creativity, inspiration, meaning, purpose, empathy, and greater love—qualities I call our finer jewels of being human.

We don’t transform difficult emotions as much as they transform us. For this we must surrender and become vulnerable; we must have the faith and courage, humility and strength, to be changed in ways not in our control, shaped by the wild ways of nature expressed through our emotions. This way we get to become more than what we can control, or even imagine. So, if you want to live a passionate life close to nature, give way to your heart and its storms of wild wisdom come to revolutionize you.

To be changed by difficulty, we have to be vulnerable, pliant, brave, and strong enough to weather the shape-shifting of our sense of self. This requires having a strong enough core sense of self, our functional ego, one that can handle the adjustments, or in some cases, the dismantling of our sense of self. For this reason, the support of loved ones, and a therapist, is virtually essential, or at least makes the journey more productive and smoother.

Our dark, uncomfortable, or downright terrifying emotions are the other side of love. They are love’s underbelly, the deeper regions of our heart. In fact, we can often sense when someone has not entered this sacred chamber inside themselves and met their life-renewing shadow because they are generally uncomfortable around the emotional struggles of others.

The Way Out is Through

While offering nuanced suggestions for precisely how to navigate our difficult emotions is beyond the scope of this article (I offer more of that here), I want to briefly speak to the popular adage, “Don’t wallow in negative emotions.” Ironically, this might be an outsider’s perspective, coined and perpetuated by folks who haven’t entered their shadow in a significant way. For, when we do, we learn that we don’t really have much say for how long we are beset by life’s downturns.

We in fact must endure periods of what seems like wallowing and obsessing because we don’t have control over these states, nor do we have to. Nor do we have to fit in to the horse and pony show of modern living, rife with sickness, dysfunction, and obsessed with productivity and positivity. Other times, however, we will be able to snap out of a funk. In these cases we have at least some say in mitigating difficult states, apart from how they might ultimately benefit us.

We experience emotion in two primary ways. The first is in response to troubling environmental factors, events, or circumstances. In these cases, it’s usually safe to heed emotional signals at face value. Another way is to experience difficult emotions due to an imbalanced physiology such as illness (including mental illness) or another stressor. In these instances, it’s better not to listen to the voice or message of emotion and its distorted reasoning, or at least not take their perceived impact and significance to heart. For example, if you’re in a spat with your partner and irritated because you need to eat, get to sleep, be alone, or just chill out, it’s often wiser to just focus on taking care of yourself and not get into it with someone else. We might also need to grab the reins of our mind and control our negative thinking, which is absolutely appropriate during rough times—especially, for example, when we are looping negative thoughts.

All these self-help actions help “skim the surface” of feeling bad, which is to clear the superficial and temporary stress that contributes to circumstantial emotional flareups. After we self-care this way, our troubles usually seem smaller and less painful. Whatever emotional charge or realization left after skimming this top layer of stress, we can embrace and more confidently take to heart. To not self-care to relieve everyday stress is to suffer unnecessarily.

Exercise, appropriate diet, and how supported we feel. all significantly influence our physiological state and therefore the duration and intensity of difficult emotional states.

The idea is to try to stay close to, and be with, our core emotional responses to real life events and to manage and discharge the extra energy these emotions generate due to mental obsession and physiological imbalance. For example, I might feel sad that I lost my girlfriend. I might feel extra sad if I lie on the couch all day and don’t force myself to get up and take a walk, eat something, or talk to friend. We have control over the latter, and not the former. In fact, we might not want to control our grief too much (so it can work on and change us), unless it’s unnecessarily physiologically generated and/or exacerbated by too much inactivity and stagnation.

To get in touch with our core emotions, we can activate and express them (Yang), or slow down and gently embrace them (Yin). This is where the jewels are—if we dig, or better, let ourselves be unearthed! Taking a break from digging and feeling tough feelings, however, is also crucial. This is healthy denial, when we focus on other things to give ourselves a break and so we can return to the inner work refreshed and with clearer perspective.

Lying around feeling sad all day might be helped by taking a walk, venting and being heard by a friend, or getting out to get out of our own head. Feeling angry for hours might be appropriately curbed by going for a run, pounding on some pillows, or finding genuine cause for laughter. But longer stints of grief, for example, might stay with us for months or years. Often, we don’t have much say in this. We can therefore surrender and be changed into what we can’t imagine by this wild wisdom of our deeper hearts.

An unfortunate alternative to embracing our difficult feeling states is turning to drugs, addiction, and excess avoidance, which usually create more suffering. What’s more, we miss out on the nourishing qualities hidden in challenging emotions—our finer jewels of being human—which we harvest by embracing them. Handled skillfully and with support, difficult times can be immense opportunities for growth, finding meaning and purpose in life, and reckoning with our demons. How we approach and handle difficulty is just as important, if not more so, than how we deal with easy times.

—–

Jack Adam Weber, L.Ac., MA, is Chinese medicine physician, having graduated valedictorian of his class in 2000. He has authored hundreds of articles, thousands of poems, and several books. Weber is an activist for embodied spirituality and writes extensively on the subjects of holistic medicine, emotional depth work, and mind-body integration, all the while challenging his readers to think and act outside the box. Weber’s latest creation is the Nourish Practice, a deeply restorative, embodied meditation practice as well as an educational guide for healing the wounds of childhood. His work can be found at jackadamweber.com, on Facebook, or Twitter, where he can also be contacted for life-coaching and medical consultations.

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Supermoon In Libra: Relationship Adjustments

We are having a Full Moon in Libra on March 20th-21st depending on where you are located in the world. This is the peak of the Lunar cycle that began on March 6 with a New Moon in Pisces. It will also be the last of three back to back Supermoons happening in 2019, which is when the Moon appears larger and brighter due to its closer proximity to the Earth. The previous one in February was the brightest of the three.

This Full Moon coincides with the Equinox, which is the beginning of Aries season (via the Tropical Zodiac) and is the first of 12 signs. Traditionally, some cultures observe this period as the beginning of a New Year, which makes much more cosmological sense than the calendar New Year. Even this transition from dreamy and floaty Pisces to active and direct Aries tends to be the most obvious and noticeable transition between signs.

During this Full Moon, we can experience either a push-pull or collaboration between the Sun in Aries and Moon in Libra. The energies of it gradually build up and become more noticeable on the day of and days surrounding it. It is also part of the backdrop of the other astrological influences/reflections over the following two weeks.

Aries and Libra are two out of the four Cardinal signs which are the first signs of each quarter of the zodiac. They all have an initiating quality in their own way. Aries is a fire sign ruled by Mars. It is about action, moving forward, pioneering, independence, self-identity, self-orientation, and leadership. It is bold, courageous, and instinctual, yet it can also be aggressive, impulsive, impatient, selfish, and hot tempered.

Libra is an Air sign ruled by Venus. It is about relating, relationships, partnerships, codependency, consideration, harmony, balance, fairness, art, creativity, and beauty. It is sociable, diplomatic, and intellectual, yet it can also be indecisive, passive aggressive, vain, and even judgemental. Although Aries is much more of an initiating sign in comparison to Libra due to the qualities mentioned above, Libra still expresses its Cardinal energy socially and towards consideration.

An interesting thing to mention is that this Full Moon happens right at the beginning of Libra at 0 degrees due to it occurring on the Equinox. This degree tends to be more potent and sometimes can reflect exploring new experiences or actions connected to that sign.

Full Moon Opposite Sun/Chiron Conjunction, Quincunx Uranus

The Sun is aligned with Chiron, which brings its themes into the opposition of this Full Moon. This could trigger wounds, blockages, and patterns connected to self-identity, independence, willpower, ego, or other Aries themes mentioned in the section above. It can also reflect potential healing, bridging or uniting two parts of something, holistic awareness, and combined with the current Mercury Retrograde in Pisces it could also have a spiritual tone. This can be a source of either potential challenges and/or growth around relationships at this time.

The Full Moon is in a quincunx with Uranus in Taurus, which could reflect changes, surprises, disruptions, new experiences, rebellion, or other curve balls being thrown at us that may require some adjustments. In many cases it will be connected to the themes of the Aries-Libra opposition mentioned and can play out in our relationship dynamics, but it can also manifest in other ways. In Taurus it could have something to do with money, possessions, or values.

Venus Square Mars and Sextile Jupiter, Mars Trine Pluto

Venus, the ruler of Libra, is in Aquarius while in a tight square with Mars in Taurus, which is the ruler of Aries. This aspect emphasizes the potential challenges of this Full Moon. The way we or others assert our personal wants, values, or resources can be at odds with social or romantic aspects of our lives. However, this aspect can also be supportive creatively or sexually, especially considering that Venus is also in a harmonious aspect with Jupiter.

Venus in a sextile with Jupiter in Sagittarius can reflect growth, learning, and overall expansiveness in different types of relationships. In some cases it can be connected to travel/foreign countries, social media, education, and beliefs. However, the developments that could occur might require adjustments in how we assert ourselves.

Mars is in a trine with Pluto, which can be good for actions that are focused, deep, and powerful. It can also be good for applying ourselves in a confident or empowering way and towards making positive changes.

Mercury Retrograde Moving Towards Neptune Before Going Direct

Mercury has been retrograde in Pisces since March 5th, a day before this Lunar cycle started. This retrograde extends the strong Piscean energy into most of Aries season. The actual retrograde ends on March 28th; however, the following days can still feel retrograde-ish. The few weeks following are known as the ‘post shadow,’ which is when its themes conclude and things start to fall into place more smoothly and productively.

While Mercury is transitioning from retrograde to direct, it will be aligned with Neptune. Our intuition can be heightened and we can be divinely inspired. Our thoughts and communications can be revolved around spirituality, compassion, empathy, and sacrifice. This can be a period of magical experiences or interactions with others. However, this can be challenging for rational and linear thinking. We can overlook mundane details easily and can also be confused. You can read more about this retrograde here.

Things To Consider During This Period

What recurring themes have been coming up for you in recent weeks, and what directions are your circumstances pushing you towards? How can you balance your individual needs with your relationship’s needs? Do you or others in your life have any wounds or blockages getting in the way? If so, what can you do to resolve or address the situation?

These are just some examples of themes that could come up during this period; however, there may be other variations of this energy playing out as well. If you wish to do any sort of intentional release connected to what has come up at this Full Moon, it is best to do so anytime over the two weeks following, when it is waning. The exact moment of this Full Moon is on the night of March 20th/21st at 1:43am Universal Time. You can click here to see what that is in your time zone.

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A Simple Trick To Unlock Determination & Focus

In Brief

In a world filled with distractions, the ability to lock in and focus has become harder and harder to master. But rather than looking outside of yourself for a solution, the key may just lie within.

Reflect On:

How many notifications do you receive daily? Are there any Apps that rather than always receiving notifications from you could instead just check at certain times?

A recent study revealed that in the United States, the average smartphone user receives 45.9 push notifications per day, and many of us exceed that number. From Facebook to Instagram to Twitter to WhatsApp to Gmail, everything is constantly vying for our attention.

As a result of this overload, we’re experiencing a collective inability to focus at our highest potential and a reality where the majority of us are consistently fighting off some sort of urge to do something else.

(Fun Fact: Even as I’ve just started to write this article I’ve already seen my phone light up twice with notifications. I’ve now followed my own rules and have turned it over to lock in on the task at hand–more on this later.)

Even if you are part of the dying breed of individuals who have sworn off social media, although you finding and reading this article suggests otherwise, we all seem to be having an incredibly difficult time staying focused.

And with every useless scroll through our Instagram news feed and with every endless YouTube video rabbit hole we fall into, we only further shrink our attention span and strengthen the programming that convinces us that this is normal behaviour.

Assuming that part of why you clicked on this article is because you do have something that you ideally would like to focus on and ultimately accomplish, I’d like to share with you the best tactic I’ve personally found (and some bonus ones) to “lock in.” Believe it or not, this tactic is not a specific exercise, but is instead designed for you to realize that you still have an incredible ability to focus within you. It hasn’t gone anywhere, it’s just been misguided.

In fact, it’s likely getting more use than you could ever imagine.

The best way to explain this further is by using an example. Think of the last time you either: A) lost your phone, or B) forgot to bring a charger and realized that your phone was about to die.

The moment that either of those realities kick in for most of us, we immediately enter a state where nothing else matters. In scenario A, we search everywhere possible, call it from any other device we can get our hands on, and seek out the assistance of everyone available. In scenario B, despite being an introvert on the daily, we suddenly find ourselves engaging in conversation with everyone by asking for a charger, and if one can’t be found we start planning our exit no matter how much fun we’re having pre-low battery.

We’ve all experienced and have seen this before. When assessed like this, it likely sounds like a form of insanity–and I wouldn’t be surprised if it is–but from a completely different perspective, it’s actually fully “locked in” determination.

You see, we all have the capacity to focus on one particular thing and give all of ourselves to it, it’s just that our auto-pilot has become the opposite because of the sheer number of distractions we are exposed to and have become addicted to.

So rather than looking outside of yourself for some practice or technique that’s going to help you focus and finish writing that book, completing the homework, or finally send out those wedding thank you cards, look within and realize that you are still a determination powerhouse just waiting to be re-guided.

Bonus Tips: 1) When working on something important, put your phone on silent and either put it in another room or face down on your desk. 2) Consider turning off notifications and instead just check certain apps at particular points in the day. I’ve personally turned off all notifications from Facebook, Instagram and all audible email pushes.

For more brutally honest personal development content designed for those who actually want to change be sure to subscribe to my YouTube Channel and to follow me on Instagram. And to receive my free eBook on 5 Simple Daily Hacks For A Genuinely Happier Life click HERE.

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Indigenous Leaders Share the Prophecy of the Reunion of the Condor and Eagle (VIDEO)

In Brief

The Facts:

Indigenous cultures from around the globe all share a prophecy about the time we are living in now. It states that the people of Earth will unite in some sort of spiritual awakening with the common goal of peace on Earth.

Reflect On:

Think about how much human consciousness has changed within the past 10 years alone. We are starting to see through the lies and deception, we are starting to realize that it's really time to change things here on our planet. We are in the process.

Indigenous cultures today struggle to remember their teachings. It doesn’t help that the western world portrays them in a certain light, but the fact remains that indigenous cultures were extremely advanced. They understood how to live in harmony with the Earth, and their teachings were very profound, insightful and spiritual. You don’t need to look far to see how knowledgable they were, and their knowledge of our planet, the cosmos, science and mathematics still baffles experts today. How they were able to acquire certain knowledge and build various structures is still a mystery, as many of these things would be difficult to replicate even using modern technology. We see this with the pyramids built by various indigenous cultures throughout history, pieces of artwork, and several other anomalous artifacts that really don’t receive much media attention. These people were highly advanced, but unfortunately colonization and the arrival of the Europeans changed all of that. I still get upset when I hear people interpret these cultures as very ‘primitive,’ as if they just lived in forests. That interpretation is very far from the truth.

Scholars have estimated that, prior to the ‘discovery’ of the Americas by Europeans, the pre-contact era population could have been as high as 100 million people. American anthropologist and ethnohistorian Henry F. Dobyns, most known for his published research on American Indians and Hispanic peoples in Latin and North America, estimated that more than one hundred twelve million people inhabited the Americas prior to European arrival. (source)(source)(source)

When these cultures were wiped out, so were their teachings, knowledge and wisdom. It was replaced with religious indoctrination, and indigenous cultures throughout the world, especially in North America, have since struggled to regain and retain the knowledge and teachings that were lost.

But things are changing.

These cultures also had prophecies, and many of them speak of a time when all of this knowledge would be lost, but then would eventually return to Earth. Prophecies speak of indigenous cultures and bloodlines reuniting. We’re living in a special time right now because that ancient indigenous prophecy wasn’t just referring to the ‘spiritual awakening’ of their own people, but of the entire planet, and this is the process we’re going through today.

It gives me chills just thinking about it. The time has come where many desire a cleaner, greener, more cooperative human experience where everybody can thrive. Humanity has the potential to live in peace and meet the needs of everyone easily. We can live in harmony with nature and work with it, not against it.

Here at Collective Evolution, we refer to this time as the shift in consciousness, and we are currently living through it. The ‘darkness’ is being exposed, and this ‘darkness’ has primarily relied on the manipulation of human consciousness. Our thoughts, feelings and perceptions about what is happening on our planet have been completely altered by the same forces that once sought to wipe out indigenous knowledge and implant their own ideals. Just as the surviving indigenous after European arrival were brainwashed and indoctrinated, we too have been brainwashed and indoctrinated.

Today, we live in a society that manipulates our consciousness in order to justify wars, wars based on false premises. We are made to believe that, even with all our technological advancements and potential to provide abundance for all, that this is not ‘economically feasible.’ We’ve been made to believe that our medicines are helping us, and that we can ‘out-do’ nature and rise above it. So many of humanity’s actions are not in harmony with the planet and all life on it.

Thankfully, this mass spiritual awakening is here. Not only is humanity becoming aware of the fact that we can change the human experience to one that resonates with all, but we are also realizing that we’ve been manipulated, that we have the power to change, and that a world beyond our physical material world exists. Non-material science is becoming stronger, and awareness of the metaphysical world is becoming the norm.

Many activist movements are growing, and truth movements and campaigns have been gaining attention and popularity for years. We are no longer sitting idle, we are raising our voice, we are acting, and we are bringing about a shift in consciousness and a spiritual awakening that was prophesied long before we were even here. It’s a beautiful time to be alive, and the best way to bring about peace, love, unity and cooperation is to embody these qualities within ourselves.

Below is a video of indigenous leaders and elders sharing and explaining the current transitional time that we are living in.

There have been wounds of injustice, of oppression, of colonization, of greed, of superstition, all those things which injure the human heart. At the same time there’s been no way for this to be expressed, it’s been held inside. So this ancestral wound is this wound that’s been carried on from generation to generation to generation, this intergenerational trauma. But it was also prophesied and promised that after a period of 500 years that a great, great spiritual spring time would emerge with such power and such intensity that all that had been covered in the cold bitter snow would be revealed and cleansed and purified. And that we would emerge galvanized, reunited as not only the reunion of the Condor and Eagle, but a reunion of the entire human family. This time is now. (This quote was taken from the video below.)

The Takeaway

We are truly living in an apocalypse. But that doesn’t mean it’s the end of the world, but rather a disclosure or revelation of knowledge. A lot of truths are being exposed today within several different subjects, be it food, politics, health, etc. We are being presented with knowledge that severely contrasts what we’ve been indoctrinated to believe. Having our collective belief systems questioned and challenged is not an easy process, and many are still fighting to hang on to old ways and belief systems. This is all part of the current spiritual transformation/shift in consciousness that the human race is experiencing as a collective. It’s all part of these ancient prophecies.

The demand for Collective Evolution's content is bigger than ever, except ad agencies and social media keep cutting our revenues. This is making it hard for us to continue.

In order to stay truly independent, we need your help. We are not going to put up paywalls on this website, as we want to get our info out far and wide. For as little as $3 a month, you can help keep CE alive!